Tip Jar

Caffeine Alert

Caffeine Alert is a wireless blog toy packaged inside a jar of premium blend coffee beans. At home in the kitchen or dining room, the toy is designed to simplify blog subscriptions, and bring them into a more social and glanceable space.

When a new post arrives, the coffee buzzes and lights up in one of four colors, so you can keep track of your favorite RSS feeds without sitting in front of the computer. When ground and served, the coffee beans provide hours of caffeine-driven blogging. The toy can be easily refilled with your choice of coffee beans (and new batteries) when the supply runs out.

Caffeine Alert, like Becky's Chatter IM pillow, uses the Plushie Message Framework (PMF) to connect Internet data with Arduino and signal wireless output. PMF can be extended for custom uses using a class-based PHP4 system. Current modules allow you to watch instant messages on Adium and to subscribe to a set of RSS feeds. The script runs as a background process that routes signals off to the receiving wireless toy, by way of the Arduino.

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What's Happening Here

This blog documents the work of students in two separate Parsons classes and departments.
MAKING WIRELESS PLUSH TOYS designs, sews, and solders interactive soft toys. MAKING WIRELESS PLUSH TOYS is a class in the CDT department, Communication Design Technology.
TOY CONCEPT DEVELOPMENT AND DESIGN deals with the fundamentals of ideation, development and design. TOY CONCEPT DEVELOPMENT AND DESIGN is a class in the Illustration Department.
These are two separate classes that take place in two separate departments and have two separate groups of students. The Professors decided to create one blog for the class to help promote the cross-fertilization of ideas and warm fuzzy feelings between departments.